Being Broken

196 thoughts on “Being Broken”

1. Cracks are real.
   But so are welds.

   1. And spackle, Bondo, epoxy. . .

   2. Oh, and duct tape, can’t forget the fixall!

      1. Fiberglass!

         1. Fiber Fix above all.

2. I came to resist ever going to any kind of single-parent therapy sessions after my daughter was born (long story short, the Daughter Unit’s father vanished in a cloud of dust the instant I told him that I was pregnant) because it seemed to me that many of the other participants were reveling in their victimhood. It was almost as if they were in a contest to one-up each other. “Hey, my ex used to beat me!” “Well, my ex beat me AND the kid!!” “Well, MY ex beat me, the kids AND the dog!”
   I couldn’t see that participating in the misery sweepstakes would do me any good at all, and I categorically refused to be defined as a victim, of him or anyone else.

   1. {Insert Standard Comedy Routine Here}
      “Did he he beat you?”
      “Yes, all the time.”
      {further devolving exchange}
      “…at checkers.”

   2. One may hope that your current mindset is “good riddance”.
      Think how much worse off you and daughter would be if the miserable SOB had hung around.
      Someone once said that the best revenge was simply to live well. Doing so is a source of extreme consternation to your enemies.

   3. Know a guy who got accused of child molestation by his daughter because of that and a “you must be repressing stuff” school counselor.

      She recovered herself, but that was really ugly.

      1. I know someone, best described as narcissist-crazy, who believes her problems are due to being groped by a nurse. As a newborn still in the hospital. Therapy helped her ‘remember’.

         Riiiiight….

         1. I probably should have taken a couple of my kids to psych doctors before I did except for this sort of stuff. And sure, we hear about the real crazies, but you also hear about friends who go to marriage counseling or even to just talk to a psychologist/therapist for depression and the answer is always to leave your husband. I’ve aunts who became convinced that their failed marriages (one because he was a nut, the other because she was the nut) were because *their* parents never fought in front of them. Yeah, your problems are the fault of parents who *don’t* fight…

            1. THIS. Every middle aged woman is told to divorce.

               1. Young, too. At least judging by the myriad posters plastering the walls at the WIC offices and other suchlike places that basically boil down to “Are you SURE you’re not in an abusive relationship??”

                  1. It’s honestly evil. It just is.

         2. OMG.

   4. A friend has described her short lived experience woman’s support groups.   

      She was from a family where women had been going to college for several generations, and some had even continued on to graduate school.  She was aware there were still challenges to juggling roles and expectations in life.  She had joined thinking this would be a place where women would support each other in doing so. 

      All the women wanted to do was bitch and complain about men … how the decks were stacked against them … and men … how unfair things were for them … and men. 

      The last night she attended they finally started talking about the plans they were making for themselves.  My friend, who has the quaint idea that marriage is a partnership of two people, asked one what her husband thought about the changes she was proposing for their lives. It did not go over well.

      1. Women used to have the common sense to sit in overstuffed chairs with a nice cup of tea and tasty finger foods (usually sweet) at hand, while they moaned and whined about the vagaries and iniquities of various males. Now, they sit in hard folding chairs in a meeting room, usually without any kind of refreshment (unless they bring their own).

         Meanwhile, the various males stuck with the tried and true. Sit down with a nice pint of beer (or other alcoholic-type beverage) and tasty finger foods (usually salty) at hand, while they moan and whine about the vagaries and iniquities of various females.

         Maybe just another sign of the patriarchy rising once again – creating a hostile environment for complaining women…

         1. … usually without any kind of refreshment …

            Aw heck, they likely have tepid old bad coffee with cheep lumpy powdered creamer.

         2. You CANNOT BLAME MEN for that. The women created that hostile environment. Men had NOTHING to do with it.

            1. Well, then, it must be the vast right wing conspiracy!

               No, wait, that is a product of the patriarchy, too! Just ask Hillary.

               EVERYTHING IS THE PATRIARCHY! CLIMATE CHANGE! GAS PRICES! ACNE! AUGGH!!!

               (Public notice: This commenter will be off-line for a few hours, while he wet-packs and runs the Valium IV for the inner feminist.)

      2. How does the song go:

         “I want someone to stand beside me. Not behind me, not in front of me, not below me, not above me. Take my hand and stand beside me.”

         Remember a conversation that was had at work. Mixed group. All technology engineers & developers. Ages 50s to 30s; at the time I was early 40’s. Question was asked how everyone handled finances, specifically checking accounts. I was shocked. Pretty sure I was the only married person where the couple co-mingled common accounts (not to be confused with IRA’s etc., which for legal reasons have to be separate). Everyone else each had their own accounts without their partner on it, plus a household shared account where they each deposited funds to pay household bills. Have come to find out, that siblings, our folks, & I, are now minorities, in this. The only thing that has changed over the last 40 years for us is actually knowing who is legally primary on any account (or it is a PIA otherwise).

         We never have had separate accounts, since we got back from the ceremony & small honeymoon. Granted it helped that we each started with less than nothing (translation: everything we have, we’ve built together) & our financial standards are the same. Income equivalence from one to another has varied, sometimes he made more, sometimes I did(*). But never horribly out of balance unless one of us was out of work; usually me as it turned out.

         (*) Funny story. Our first jobs out of college, after we were married, were for the same company, for the same job type, same base salary. But our yearly earnings, his was higher. First year, so we went to a tax accountant to do our taxes. Her comment was how could his yearly be higher than mine given the circumstances. Answer: Easy. Salary Not Exempt. Anything over 8 hours/day, & weekends, was overtime; plus there was extra if you worked nights. He had worked more weekends & nights than I did, by our choice.

         1. Ours are together in that both names are on all accounts (except credit cards). it’s just easier to track spending when two people aren’t drawing from the same account. It sounds more complicated to talk about moving money back and forth between you but it’s really not.

            1. We cheat. We use the same Credit Card for (almost) everything. It has different numbers for the same account (which is paid off monthly). Thus as I track it online, I can see who has done what. Once it is in Quicken, not so much. That part doesn’t download. But I can always get YTD/Monthly spending by summaries on categories. If spending gets out of control, I can point out where it went “south”. It would be a huge deal if we had huge differences in spending, but we don’t, never have. We’ve had “separated” accounts before for legal reasons, but like you we were each on each others account, but we really only used one of them; one big bucket, so to speak.

               The conversation that came out at work was: My Account – MY Money, THEIR Account – THEIR Money, Household Account – Shared Money only for common expenses. One example a spouse actually had two accounts, one was like you describe, but the other was separation account from before marriage (protecting an inheritance) that the other spouse had no claim over. Another the reason of account separation was to be able to prove all maintenance of non-marriage asset was being paid for out that persons funds & not co-marital funds. But the others didn’t have any specific reason other than “I earned it.”

               The other thing that came out was both were expected to pay their “share” of expenses; more of a roommate mentality.

         2. Single account, only, can complicate the life of the widowed, because it goes into probate.

            1. “Probate/Widowed”

               Good point. Hadn’t thought of it that way.

               At this point our only checking account (in both our names) is what others would call the “household account”, just SS & pensions are deposited there, then the amount needed is transferred from one of our personal retirement accounts (one big bucket, but multiple accounts). Personal retirement accounts avoid probate because of the way they are setup.

            2. Unless you’re in a community property state…

               1. “Can.”

                  There are other things that can let you escape, for instance. Besides sepearte accounts with money enough to tide you over a reasonable period, I’ve heard of accounts being in the name of Husband & Wife in trust for Husband & Wife, which for some reason lets you escape. no doubt there are others.

   5. If, because of horror or shock or recognition of an opportunity for self-aggrandizement, your reaction to something bad stops at “I’m a victim!!!!!”, then I suppose it’s possible to believe “therefore I’m a hero”. But that’s partly because we (as a society) don’t teach what a hero is anymore.
      If we did, we’d all recognize the important thing is “what’s next?” – do we act like a hero, or like a survivor, or like a loser, in how we respond to the victimization?
      IAW, being a victim is a momentary state. A short time later and for the rest of your life, what you are is what you did about it.
      Gotta teach those options.

3. A decade or more ago, I talked with a friend who had been out of work for a couple of years. He couldn’t see much point in finding work, because it wouldn’t make the world better if he did. I pointed out that it would his own life better, and his wife’s, and that that would improve the world locally. He didn’t get it.

   And the strange thing is that he had studied economics, and he has to have been taught about Pareto improvements somewhere in there. . . .

   1. I often wonder about the teaching of economics. More and more, it seems to have less thought of reality.

      1. I encountered a great econ prof during his last year teaching. Not retiring, moving to private sector to follow the money. See, he actually understood economics, so… thus does economic education suffer from a form of ‘evaporative cooling.’

         1. I bet the “friendly” environment helps like a drydown tower

      2. I had an economics class in college. The first day, the Prof came in. She was a very nice looking woman in a nice summer dress, and with the first words out of her mouth it was dead obvious that she was French. VERY FRENCH. “Oh boy” I thought to myself. “Keep your head down, figure out what she thinks are the right answers, even if it’s how wonderful socialism is, and get through this with your GPA in tact”.

         Then, early on in the semester one of the nice, young, fresh-faced, obviously-indoctrinated, fresh out of high school kids breathlessly answered a question in class with what might very well have been words directly quoted from Marx, or perhaps the “Socialist Party Platform”.

         The Prof looked at her, and completely dead-pan said “well, that’s just dumb” and proceeded to DESTROY the Marxist argument with the mighty-fist of pure Capitalist theory. Delivered happily and lightly with that accent… omg… that accent…

         I managed to NOT embarrass myself… barely…

         1. Oi

   2. Admittedly don’t know the individual in question, but it sounds to me more like an excuse than a reason. “I can’t possibly accept a job stocking shelves at Target, that won’t solve global warming.”

      Reminds me somewhat of Lena Dunham and her boyfriend who weren’t going to get married until gays could marry. Well, Kennedy found the right to gay marriage in the penumbras, and anyone out there gullible enough to believe that the boyfriend immediately showed up with a ring?

      1. Yes, but he seemingly thought it was a plausible excuse.

      2. Any excuse to avoid Lena Dunham though.

4. c4c

5. “I’m not broken but I’m going to break the world anyway.” 😈

   Seriously, I have some “broken places” but I’m strongly working to “work around them”.

6. But in our current society it’s victims who get all the attention.
   Some even make careers out of being marginally associated with victims of great tragedies (cough media Hogg cough).
   Victimhood has great power, and that magnified many fold by our content desperate media. Just look at how a repressed memory of an experience decades past can be used to bring low the most powerful opponents.
   It’s my own hope that the pendulum swings away from its peak of glorifying victimhood, and my fear that the other extreme will be just as ugly and hurtful.

   1. Yep. We inculcate it from the first days of school where getting a diagnosis means extra time, support it with the victim olympics to get into college (try writing an essay about how you were victimized vs solving a normal problem) and even full jobs. The emotional incontinence still drives public policy and donations.

   2. Yeah, social media has done incredible damage along with its benefits. Getting an audience can be a heady thing, very addictive, and most people, especially kids, don’t have any achievements that warrant justified attention.

7. Weirdly enough the incidents that shattered me largely involved being bullied by (among others and at various times in my life) school kids, bosses, teachers… What came out of that was that I see bullying I act. Especially the snide psychological abuse type of bullying which was what I got most often.

   I don’t preach about it. I just do my best to stand up and ridicule anyone I catch doing that kind of bullying. And for the rest of it, mostly get on with my life as best I can. It’s not worth putting myself through what it would take to be a professional victim.

8. I have watched over the deathbed of my son. He survived 5 hours after birth and we kept him with us until 8 pm, a few hours after his passing, with the hospital’s permission. Hospitals are now raising funds for “cuddle cots”, cooled beds for infants and toddlers that can help preserve the body of a deceased child for a few more hours to allow the family a chance to gather and say goodbye.

   About the era of “twilight sleep” deliveries, stillbirths, miscarriages and infant losses were shoved under the carpet and not talked about. No chance to grieve or come to terms with it. Experts have since discovered that those vigils and chances to say goodbye help process the fact of the loss and helps the grieving process be a healthy one. Even just knowing that someone else was there and watched over the loved one helps. So the “death watch” was something people figured out on their own to be a good thing and incorporated it into the culture.

   1. I can’t remember the episode, but at one point in Star Trek Worf walks up to someone keeping vigil over the dead.
      Short talk where he mentions that Klingons have a tradition of guarding the body to keep the animals away.
      “Then maybe we should keep the animals away together.”

      I, thank God, haven’t lost a child– but the urge is good, strong. Important.

      1. I remember tht episode. The person he sat with was Chief O’Brien and it was one of the episodes during the DS9 Dominion War arc. One of the engineers on

         1. incomplete sentence-The Defiant was killed (and Worf had been very harsh in his treatment of the engineer).

   2. I worked with a girl who talked about standing vigil for someone who had died to keep the evil spirits away. I don’t know if it was a native american tradition or Hispanic or a mixture (I thought she was Hispanic rather than SW NA.) She said that the spirits came the way they were expected to and were driven off.

      I don’t think that there are any rituals in my own traditions for when someone dies or is dying. We don’t do last confessions, though the pastor might come. Immediate family will come. But there aren’t any set things to *do*. And I think that’s a pity. There’s a funeral and eulogies but other than bringing a casserole, not much else.

      1. I had a good friend and employer die overnight from a sudden heart attack, (I was the one who found him and had to call the police, ambulance, medical examiner, next of kin, other employees.) His family were going to fly in from out of town, some of them were going to stay at his place … and so the other employee and I spend a day, cleaning it all up. Vacuuming, changing the sheets on the bed, sorting out the mess on the work desk, straightening out the kitchen, doing laundry. Funny enough – that was all quite therapeutic for us by the time we were done. (Friend was also gay, we didn’t know if his family knew about this – so we did some quiet sanitizing of certain items. Turned out the family knew, didn’t much care … but they were quite grateful to us, and kept sneaking money to us, as we were now unemployed…)

         1. Bless you.

         2. In his much overlook d social history of Iowa (HAWKEYES), Phil Stong writes about sittng up with the recently passed, making it seem perfectly normal, respectful, and peaceful.

            And then there’s Ray Steven’s ‘Sittin’ Up With The Dead’ for the contrary POV.

            1. Post scriptum;

               In preactice, I favor Stong’s position, but the Stevens song IS funny.

      2. Being very much a “mixed culture” family, I’ve done all sorts of “after” things. The best, at least in my opinion, is something like a wake, except after all of the immediate high stress things are over and done with. The close family and friends getting together for a quiet time, with people sharing memories – or not, as they wish. A depressurization for those who still have to take care of the rest of the headaches that come with a passing (of an adult, at least).

9. While experience forms you, what defines you should be what you have done with it afterwards. Unless something kills you immediately (extreme case), or leaves you in a state of physical and/or mental incapacity (worst case short of dying), it is usually possible to rebuild to a wiser and more resilient state.

   Today, putting one’s wounds on display in nauseating displays of one-upmanship is not only tolerated, it is praised as virtue. Admittedly the stoicism with which I was brought up might not have been the absolute greatest (my other half finds that getting me to express my feelings is like trying to bathe a cat, and he’s a man), the current emotional incontinence we are mired is is far, far worse.

10. No, men can’t cause all other men to be decent. Anymore than I can cause every woman to not be a little idiot. Because we don’t share a collective mind controlled by the sex organs.

    And yet the dumb-bleeps are already demanding that of anything female.

    Hard core go fornicate yourself.

    1. Yeah, but think of the opportunities for malicious fun.

       Step one, find some genuine hard core anti-Catholic religious bigots or anti-Irish racial bigots, and get them to sidle up to the folks bitching about Judge K.
       Step two, all feminists are disqualified.
       Step three, “why would I be a feminist, you say I can’t be human because I am Irish?”

       1. Last night, I happened to listen to “Life is Worth Living” by Sheen, on the Irish.

          He identified our three points as fighting, laughter and blarney, from memory.

          I need to listen to his deal with the Russians, which inspired it….

          1. You know, that also seems to describe me to an extent. At one point I thought I had some Irish heritage, as one of a dozen things that I’m not particularly invested in. Later found out it was Scotch-Irish. I would have identified with certain Scotch-Irish values whether or not I had the ancestry, because I read Meade when young, and identify strongly with the Jacksonian foreign policy tribe. I’m of mixed schools, because I’m also Hamiltonian, but that preference is in cold blooded. Jacksonian is hot blooded, cold blooded, and perhaps I can even justify iron blooded.

             Some of the men who were a formative influence on me in my mid to late teens were Irish-American, perhaps that was where I learned the Blarney. Or maybe it was a response to growing up around so many lying socialists while having a strong orientation to truth.

             1. I think that part of why “Irish” is such a popular ancestry is that it’s totally accessible– you wish it, and you can BE it.

                And that is a good thing.

                1. according to the ancestry thingies, I’m almost 40% Scottish/Irish. Much is explained.
                   And yes, Fox, I can hear you laughing madly.

             2. also, we tend to be a bit light-fingered, so if you find yourself fitting in…you’ve just been stolen.

                1. Is that cultural appropriation? *rimshot*

                   1. By the current definitions, yes, it probably is cultural appropriation for the Irish to embrace the non-Irish who are now identifying as Irish … and cultural appropriation for the non-Irish to identify as Irish in the first place.

                      At least the fraternal line for me is clearly Scottish descent – but from a clan and areas where, when it got hot, the smart may have taken a ship to Ireland to survive with cousins until folks were no longer looking for them … but not technically Scotch-Irish. Go figure … 😉

                      1. Today the Irish Government wants to replace the Irish with others because diversity.

    2. Somebody posted about something she experienced the other day at an ice cream parlor, where a guy was harassing his girlfriend (a waitress) to the point where she was having a hard time doing her job. As in grabbing her hips and backside, physically handling her when she had a tray (causing or almost causing her to drop items), and so forth. This parent noticed several of his peers telling him to knock it off, as she did herself, and he was getting self-righteous about the situation. Well, about 45 minutes after this started, when the waitress had been so delayed that it would have definitely affected her employment in a less sympathetic audience, the guy’s father showed up. He’d been sent videos of what was going on and he was Righteously Pissed Off.

       Long story short, some men can cause other men to be decent. It just has to be the correct ones.

       1. See also, the AntiFa guy whose mom showed up and KICKED HIS IDIOT BEHIND on national TV a couple of years back.

          She’d been watching TV and spotted him on one of the “these guys are giving cops a hard time” clips.

          1. That was a beautiful clip involving Toya Graham of Baltimore — even if she was a bit more physical than folks were comfortable with seeing caught on video. Interesting lady – barely getting by but she wanted her son to be safe (and her daughter actually wanted to become a police officer).

       2. “some men can cause other men to be decent” — happens more often in a culture where honor and decency are taught as positive values, and a friend or father aren’t punished for helping to maintain those values.

11. “Yes, in an ideal world no woman or girl would ever be afraid of walking anywhere alone or eve(n) inebriated.”

    Actually I’ve seen that world, in Japan. I remember leaving izakayas, seeing young, and old, ladies, some three sheets to the wind, confidently and comfortably walk or stumble 6 or 20 blocks to their homes surely, safely and securely.

    I like the country, and the people. I’m delighted that women, generally, feel, and are quite safe there, however the rigours and structure of the society that creates that environment, I’m not so sure about.

    On the other hand, I’m quite glad my daughter grew up here in Alaska, learning to beware of and be careful around both bears and boors, knowing that it’s not an ideal world but it is whatever you make of it and we’re whatever we make of ourselves.

    1.  … learning to beware of and be careful around both bears and boors …

       We all need to learn to beware of and careful around both bears and boors, and not just the kind that make it into wildlife documentaries on National Geographic.

12. I’ve been part of a death vigil a couple times. It’s odd how different it can be.

    A couple times for family members who were Christian, it was just family and their Pastor. Very quiet and somber.

    By contrast, I was there for a Wiccan friend years ago. While I’m not Wiccan myself, I do share some common beliefs with them. She was part of an active Coven, and the room was FULL. The entire Coven was there, a few were in and out as they could make it, but most of them came and stayed. There were rituals and songs to the Goddess. Invocations of the four winds, and the elements. Laying on of hands and projecting of love and energy to help the beloved wife, friend, Coven-mate ease into the next life. Fair-wishes that we would see her again when our time came. The Coven was all-female*, I wasn’t really accepted at first, but once they knew how close I was to the dying woman, and that we shared similar beliefs (so I wasn’t likely to ridicule, alternative religions get that a lot), they accepted me and I was included.

    * It’s been my experience that all-female Wiccan Covens can be a mine-field. Often they are a lot like violent feminist groups, and any worship of the male aspect is met with hatred. I didn’t see too much of that with this Coven… I did get a few cross looks from a couple of the Witches, but a lot less than I expected from past experience.

    1. I am rather inclined to prefer the idea of a wake, a bit of mourning for the loss, but also a celebration of the fact that we were once so fortunate as to have had this person among us.

13. Death is a stranger now. I remember going to funerals with my grandparents when I was small. But my wife is adamant that we not expose our daughter to death. When my uncle died she wouldn’t let me take her with to the funeral. Instead she took the day off from work so I could go to the funeral without our daughter. At some point she’s going to have to face death. I’d really prefer her to get it in small doses now than a traumatic event later.

    1. Depending on age and relationship it has to happen somewhat early and hopefully not someone close is the decedant. My family is very much ‘wake up dead’ and first one I had was a close grandmother. Tbh that didn’t turn out very well. Really the start of my disconnection with world.

       More anxiety right now while waiting for news on dog than ever was with family.

       1. My eldest was eight? – anyway, very young when her best friend suddenly died (acute leukemia, apparently only symptomatic for a week or two).

          We gave her the choice of going to the funeral mass or not. Her decision was not (the wife attended and I stayed home).

          It was a difficult time in her life; I probably would have sheltered her from death a bit longer if I could have (I was in high school myself before anyone that I was close to, or would have even recognized on the street, passed away). But you cannot always manage that.

    2. I hope you can talk your wife around. I wonder if she had some traumatic memory because of a death. Doing it early and even just talking about death and funerals in an ordinary way can take some of the fear and trauma away. We’ve taken our kids to all family funerals possible from a young age. When we lost our 4th child, they were sad, but dealt with it okay when death was right there in our house (well, he died at the hospital but the effects and the grieving were all at the house). When somebody else dies, we browse photos and tell stories and make it a good remembrance thing, rather than an “It’s sad.” thing.

    3. My daughter has been to funerals, but not for anyone she really knew well. I’m not sure how clear she really is on the idea of death — she was pretending to be on the phone to her great-uncle a few days after his.

       I’m not sure anything will keep it from being traumatic, though, the first time it’s somebody she knew and loved and is never going to see again.

    4. Funerals on my side of the family are darn near all day or multiple times.

       At minimum:
       1) Funeral
       2) Internment
       3) Back to the house for gathering

       With my 12 year old cousin add (1.75) public memorial.

       Daddy add 0.5) Death watch

       Used to be there’d be 1.5) Dig grave for containment container. But that isn’t allowed anymore even at private cemeteries.

       Unfortunately, kids first funeral as well as my sister’s kids, that he can remember was the cousin. He was 10. It was a very, very, long day. When we finally got home & we all went to bed. About an hour later a huge scream tore out of his bedroom … took us a few minutes “to come down from the ceiling …” Never, ever, want to hear something out of a child again, ever.

       Since then. Great grandparents, & his grandfather.

    5. Yes, death is a stranger now.  

       In early grade school The Daughter had her first encounter with the death of someone she knew.  It was that of her great-great aunt.  This woman was The Spouse’s godmother.  She had been an independent woman who never married and lived and worked in NYC.  She had come to our city in NC to live with The Spouse’s parents when her health failed.  

       The Daughter had a real problem with wrapping her mind around the permanence of death.  This in turn caused a problem for the Spouse, who was hit very hard by this death.  

       When it came time for the memorial I kept The Daughter with me, letting The Spouse go to the graveside to mourn unencumbered.  (This also satisfied The Mother-In-Law didn’t think little children belonged at graves.)

       It can be a delicate knot to untangle.

       1. On mother in law’s side, if my family was different than it is, my son’s announcement that my sister’s grave was a “big ant hole” would’ve been the stuff of horrific drama, not “we’re all laughing and bawling our eyes out” reaction, since aunt/ant is a thing.

          1. Oh my. How fortunate you all had and maintained your sense of humor.

             1. It was definitely a needful release for one side of the family, even if it did scandalize some of the folks on the other side.

       2. “Mother-In-Law didn’t think little children belonged at graves.”
          .
          Don’t know how the MIL felt about her last grandchild attending her memorial (no graveside service) & playing among the pews during the proceedings; know his father & siblings, & their kids, were glad he was there. He was couple months short of 3. Only immediate family was present …

          SIL same thing. Only this time it was a pair of 4 year-old cousins, her grandchildren. As everyone said: “Well someone is pointing out to the escorting angel “Aren’t they adorable!!!! My grand-babies.”

          Never been to a funeral without children, including small babies. Granted, normally there is a space set aside so fussy babies, playful toddlers, etc., can be removed, & parents still hear the proceedings. Grave site side then depending on the weather, kids can be kept in vehicles with parents still attending, but standing close by (its a small private graveyard).

          Different traditions.

          1. Different traditions.

             Exactly.

             1. A note on mixing traditions, or abandoning/claiming new ones– sometimes it’s just what you’re use to, sometimes there’s just SOMETHING in it that ‘fits’ a need you don’t realize is there until the weight is gone.

                Mom’s side, it’s laughing at the grave, either about them or stuff they would’ve loved or even the dumbest of jokes, and yes they’ll drive you nuts with MAKING anything vaguely funny into the laugh-release that’s required.

                On dad’s side, it’s the more you love someone the less you talk about them dying, and for heaven’s sake nobody brings it up to you, the idea is that THEY mention it. There is an obligation to not hit that weak point until they decide it’s healed enough, although there’s also a lot of trust involved there.

                1. And when you break the traditions at the wrong time, or someone violates them, it can really, really hurt.

                2. “laughing at the grave”

                   Used to be that started when family dug the grave, & continued at the potluck wake after. Now just the latter. Didn’t find out about the former until dad’s internment. Since we were burying his ashes in a custom box, the interment hole was already dug, but we got fill it in ourselves. This time that is when the stories were told. Which is how I found out about the “old tradition that is no longer allowed.” How they were lucky to finish the grave properly because they got “rather soused.” How that was the last one they were ever allowed to do. Also repeats on hunting stories, on & on. Also, dad’s second wake, which was a picnic potluck at the family graveyard; first one was after the memorial which included Testimonials, Masonic & Shriner services, little more subdued …

       3. At my grandmother’s funeral, two of my cousins were small enough that my uncle went down on one knee and drew them close before they went into the funeral home room, to explain that people die. One of them was still cheerful and burbling, but the other — the younger — spent her time looking at the open casket. As in, when her mother was holding her, she was looking over her shoulder, and when her mother turned, she shifted around to look over the other shoulder for a clear view.

    6. FWIW, doesn’t dull the cut of death.

       My mom asked us if we wanted to go to a funeral– and listened when we said “no.” (honorary Auntie)

       We still knew she was dead. And earlier, that he was dead. Just didn’t require the public display.

       The wake was better as a “cut off” moment.

       My littles did that– the “party for our aunt” just WORKED for them, because she loved a party, and they could understand somehow the idea of “she was here, she isn’t now, this party is a dividing line” worked for them.

       Was a sudden death, so I don’t know if it translates.

    7. I don’t recall if it was here or at another blog, but someone recounted a story about a young woman who had been completely sheltered from death. And had both parents die when she was a teen (car wreck? memory’s not clear) and had to arrange everything.

       No. Just no. I was introduced early on, in part because DadRed worked hard to keep the local rabbit population in check, and we had hawks and other predators around. And I had elderly relatives, so death was a little spooky and creepy, but not as traumatic as for some.

    8. Death is lighter than a feather, duty is heavier than a mountain.

       The Hagakure says that the way of revenge is to enter and be cut down.

       Maybe a girl does not need to grow up preparing herself of the possible necessity of throwing her life away. I’m not sure I believe that. That preparation is how you help prepare for maximally resisting being taken to a secondary crime site. I understand that also happens to girls and women.

       I do know that I have no way to raise people so that they think the way I thought as child, and are not damaged by the experience.

       1. Women can’t throw their lives away, normally.

          They just balance on a line and it gets yanked away. Totally different.

    9. I can see not letting the child view the body. (I still don’t like the fact that my last memory of my grandfather was him in the casket – and I was an adult.)

       But the funeral is a way of marking the passing and beginning to let go.

       1. “I can see not letting the child view the body.”

          My first viewing was my great-uncle. Wish I handn’t, I was 16. But, I just couldn’t let grandma go up unaccompanied. Avoided that part like a plague, even as an adult. Until cousins funeral. Son insisted on going up, dad agreed it was his choice, so we all went up together; son was 10.

    10. “I’d really prefer her to get it in small doses now than a traumatic event later.”
        I completely agree with you. My FiL passed last year, and my MiL’s biggest comfort was cuddling with the grandkids and talking about Grandpa. The kids understood that death was only the end of this life, not of our Being, and it was good for them to hear how much their Grandpa was loved.

        1. “They’re in heaven, now.”
           “Then why are you crying?”
           “Because I love them, and I want to talk to them like I am talking to you, and hug them– and I can’t, because they’re a long ways away. It’s like moving to a really great place, but it will be a long time before I can follow. It’s good, but I still miss them.”

           Rough outline of how my family helped explain it.

14. It’s not even “groped”. There were MeToo stories about how someone in another car at a stop light made a rude gesture. I’m not disputing that it would make you feel violated because no one asked if you wanted to participate in whatever they were up to. “Flashing” or, obscene phone calls, or those explicit notes some people have gotten stuffed in their lockers… not OK. You still feel shaken and violated. I picked up a call once to hear heavy breathing and slammed the phone down… in a room of other college aged girls. They thought it was hysterical. I suppose that it was, but mostly I was shocked at how violating it felt.

    And I bring it up because I remember someone I know laughing, because it was SO funny, that she and a friend were discussing gay porn while standing behind a random little old church lady (determined by being dressed up for church on a Sunday and picking up food). Because it was SO funny to imagine how horrified this little old lady must have felt. Same person is ultra-woke.

    Not. Okay.

    On the other hand, it’s hardly permanently scarring either. And pretending it is, helps no one at all. Demanding that we NOT give women or girls (or men and boys!) tools to use to deal with those unwelcome things, and even train them *not* to defend themselves is even worse. Taking away social expectations that allow an extra foundation for refusing advances are even worse. Lumping all those non-physical or even fleeting physical contact in with assault or rape is even worse.

    And as always I just want to say… someone should let us know if we’re going to be mocking those with “old fashioned” values and demanding public male frontal nudity and how dare anyone be a PRUDE about sex or if we’re going to be omg-Victorians-just-didn’t-go-far-enough on any given day.

    1. The lil old lady (lol) case doesn’t surprise me at all. Shock the squares is a huge chunk of a lot of the actions of activists. Partly from the revenge bullying and partly from internal issues. It’s sorta a power thing.

       The reason the rules are so fluid is because they are not their to be protective but to harm.

       1. I would like everyone to be considerate and gracious to those around them, but that doesn’t work when only some people get to have the status of “deserving” compassion. But some people are so deep in a world of “either/or” that they can’t comprehend a situation where they could be gracious or compassionate to “both”.

          1. Shocking old ladies is… contraindicated.

             They tend to have far more ammunition, and no shits to give.

             1. I remember reading some article, I can’t remember the subject, but there was some remark about how, “Even your grandmother has heard of BDSM.”

                My response: “If she is your grandmother, she was having sex at least 20 years before you were born. Why on Earth do you think she would be especially ignorant on the subject?”

                1. May have honestly been here.

             2. All of these dumb-*bleeps* view them as powerless, harmless, perfect targets.

                Yes, that does mean they are double-plus dumb-*bleeps*.

                1. Mona Shaw, my hero.
                   https://www.zdnet.com/article/75-year-old-woman-smashes-up-local-comcast-office-with-hammer/

                   And my extremely non-sainted grandmother once came across someone’s shiny red Midlife Crisis Mobile at the mall, carefully parked across four spaces to prevent any possible dings to its pristine finish.

                   So she keyed it. With malice, relish, and a thoroughgoing attention to detail. And that was when she was merely *annoyed*…I am glad I never witnessed her losing her temper at actual ill intent.

             3. They tend to have far more ammunition, and no shits to give.

                Have you seen how much little old ladies can fit in those honking big purses they carry? They could have 7 or 8 full magazines of reloads in there. Heck, they could have a spare belt for the crew-served in there.

          2. Ya. Problem comes in that for a good while it will probably still be government and societally enforced as to who can be demeaned and who cannot. Not sure if it will slow in my lifetime.

             Just keep getting the view of an unbalanced centrifuge rather than pendulum.

             1. There’s already an ordinarily accepted mandate for intolerance. It’s not just that you don’t have to be *nice* to those who are wrong, you are mandated to take action, often physical action, to punish them for being wrong.

                That any two people might disagree about what “wrong” is, is absurd. There’s less doubt about “wrong” in the woke today than there was even in the most staunch inquisitor.

                1. Would be nice if the definition of intolerance didn’t expand weekly

       2. It’s abso-fricking-lutely a “power thing.”

          And I’ll not start on “revenge bullying”. I’ll let someone else expound, because that does seem to be explicit and out in the open. Loud and proud.

    2. Sadly, it seems like The Slap is verboten now too. Watch a lot of the old movies/TV shows and when a man exhibited boorish behavior towards a woman, the woman could apply The Slap to let them know ‘Not Okay’. The Slap went a long way towards establishing boundaries and giving women a sense of empowerment and resolution to those situations. Man does something unacceptable, gets slapped, and both parties move on. I don’t put myself in environments where I’d likely have to worry about boorish behavior, but I suspect if I slapped a man today, I’d get charged with assault.

       1. Part of that, too, was that The Slap was in the context of expectations that a woman was never physical. Guys got “no hitting girls, no matter what. Girls got “no hitting anyone, no matter what.” Except for The Slap.

          1. I was a child in the 1960s and 1970s. I didn’t encounter the “no hitting girls” concept until I was well into adulthood.

             There are aspects of American culture that aren’t as universal as some people think.

             I am absolutely egalitarian. If someone starts it, I will finish it. I don’t care what’s in their head or behind their zipper.

       2. Who was it said that men got One Grope… geez, was it Gloria Steinem? Looks like that’s right. Anyway… one free grope, one slap across the face. Done.

          1. Only applies to Democrat/liberal men.

             1. Nah. They get as many as they want until not politically useful.

       3. Have done it.

    3. When the whole poundMeToo thing started up I wondered if I shouldn’t join as I too had been hit on by someone I didn’t feel attracted to. When I was even younger I was at a party one night with some older friends and one of the older ladies grabbed me and had me sit in her lap. Did I feel uncomfortable? Sure, but I didn’t consider it molestation or even harassment.

    4. High school, either 10th or 11th year.

       Our teacher was the head of the “people are dying” emergency group, got called out.

       Long story short, “someone” hijacked it for a “porn writing” challenge for the class, supposedly they submitted it to the rest for evaluation. Said person was female, and yes, everyone else I could see promptly set to scribbling stuff down.

       I probably bought the next several years of harassment by giving her the look that said she was an idiot and going back to reading about Drizzt.

       Nobody hassled me in part because they were pretty sure I’d blow up, I think now…..

15. I have some bad news to report. Apparently our very own Evil Space Princess is a victim of Russian Bots. You see, The International Lord of Hate was going over ESP’s new Monster Hunter novel prior to release, but ILOH ended up distracted due to some blatherings in the Hollywood Reporter about Russian Bots being the cause of the bad word of mouth for The Last Jedi. In Larry’s own words (from his website) –

    “Okay, I should be working on the end of Monster Hunter Guardian, but then I saw this dumb ass article, and it absolutely demanded a response”

    It’s all a scheme by those evil RussianBots! They knew that their bad word of mouth actions would attract the notice of a researcher, whose research would be noted by the Hollywood Reporter, which would write an article, that would distract ILOH from working on Monster Hunter: Guardian, thus delaying its release, and causing untold havoc and calamity across the world!

    Give or take a few levels of disaster hyperbole.

    So beware the Russian Bots!

    1. That picture of Larry is just awesome. 😀

    2. I know, I was going to go through files today, and then I saw the ILOH had a review up (and on TLJ no less!) and all other plans went out the window! Because priorities!

    3. Got to be a moose and squirrel in there somewhere. Does the article being nuttier than squirrel crap count?

16. “kept vigil at a death bed”

    Younger brother and I did it for our Dad. Two days after we broke him out of the death house, err, care facility before he passed in his sleep; looking out the window at the river behind his house, with his faithful dog in his lap, and his sons at his side.

    Which beat the heck out of a last memory of my mother raving in delerium in a very strange, impersonal hospital bed while her liver and kidney’s failed and her system filled with waste products poisoning her body and mind.

    Didn’t break me; although I guess it left me a bit warped for a number of years..
    – – –
    Presumed guilt and show trials without evidence prove one thing to any man with a brain; there’s nothing to be gained by being a nice guy. Which means short of other things like religious teachings which the Left has totally disavowed, the Left is programming men to either become faux women, or the very monsters they claim we already are. Feminist ladies, and I say that with tongue in cheek, and assuming that’s not an oxymoron, the reason they can’t find any nice guys anymore is because they drove all of them away.

    1. “…they drove them all away.”

       Hence the Human Trafficking panic, which somehow never seems to deal with the world cultures that actually do keep slaves, and treat women like farm animals. It’s the recurring White Slavery panic of the Victorian and Edwardian eras with the serial numbers filed off,mand like the White Slaver panic it’s all about closing down the sex-for-pay trades because the ‘respectable’ women behind it are scared that if men can buy sex, they won’t put up with the nonsense that comes with a ‘respectable woman’.

       Legalize prostitution and a lot of these harridans will be left out in the cold.

       1. CPS, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.

          The sex slavery thing is very real.

          The stuff you point at is hit by the side eddies of stopping it– in no small part because the “willing” involvement is mostly anything but, even without legal involvement.

          High demand with low supply tends to result in illicit supply, because human.

       2. While the news never deals with the cultures who do slavery, the law enforcement side DOES—that’s part of why they hated W, because he made sure that applied even when it wasn’t PC. You can find the news reports of “shocking” Arabic slavery busts.

       3. White Slavery thing – See Rotherham, and the MANY MANY more examples.

    2. I did basically the same for my Dad. Took him back to his home, moved his recliner out of the living room, set up a hospital bed in its place, and he was right out there with everyone. He’d said he wanted to go home, and I figured that was what he meant, not being stuck in a back bedroom somewhere.

       > Didn’t break me; although I guess it left me a bit warped for a number of years..
       —
       Grief doesn’t have to break you. It just shows that you *care*.

17. Ernest Hemingway was a Communist and all-around miserable excuse for a human being.
    But when he wrote: “Life breaks everyone. And some are stronger in the broken places.” He nailed it.

    1. and lacked that strength himself

18. one of the worst things that feminist have done to womenkind is to not let a man open / hold a door for them. (or hold her chair, or walk between them and traffic, etc.) I think that they think (if they can think) the we men regard them as so weak. what they do not understand is that we are saying (unspoken ) that we are willing to stand between them and danger. Not defeat danger, but perhaps giving the a chance to escape. At the cost of our own lives. Even if we do not know you. And they tell us they can open the door themselves. telling us (unspoken) they do not need or even want our protection. period… Girllllll power will defeat any danger. even the most dangerist … MAN.
    so they are winning. the more recent generations will not protect them, will not stand in front of them, will not stand beside them (and the ones that do, mostly can not be trusted) really don’t want any thing to do with them. so when danger punches them in the face (or worse) todays younger men will do nothing to help them (they might get arrested or sue if they did) the best they can hope for is not to get laughed at.
    not all men are like this now. I still hold doors open, etc. and some of the youngsters do, (in the south it is beat into you, mostly by your mother)
    the feminist have not completely won yet, but they are winning. to their lost.

    1. What pisses me off is the guys who go nuclear against me….for someone a half-century before I was born being rude about some guy holding a door open for her.

       I mean, seriously?

       I deal with folks being rude all the time, and this monday-friday wants to scream at my teenage rump about some chick who was rude to him before my mother hit puberty?

       Go piss up a rope.

       1. Lynch mob logic. Like the women who are explicitly saying that Ford is telling the truth because they were raped by a different man.

          1. Watch Ford’s body language. She’s very much like a little kid who has learned a cute expression prevents being punished for lying. The whole accusation is pretty obviously her rape fantasy hung on the boy who ignored her in school, and because she got rewarded for it, it got embellished on the fly.

             And of course once the ball got rolling, it was easy to find a few similarly narcissistic (or more likely, well-paid) MeToos.

             1. I’m less than convinced of that, for several reasons, one of them being that if it were a rape fantasy there would have been sex involved. Also, the notion reminds me way too much of how the Clinton’s and crew defended Bill.
                My bet is that Ford was sexually assaulted as she described, but that, inebriated as she was, she couldn’t ID her attacker if her life depended on it. Then, a few decades down the line, she ended up deciding that Kavanaugh did it on the basis that A. He was at the party that night and B. He was a conservative Republican, and she wanted to believe that such persons are sexual miscreants.

                1. I bet you’re close, but I bet he wasn’t even at the party.

                2. or A. she’d seen him, or presumed friends of his, at similar parties.

          2. Aww, hell. From more private accounts. From those who had been raped, assulted, but hadn’t reported it: “At that type of ‘event’, if actually had only had one beer, she’d not only ‘know’ what she’s reporting, but EXACTLY where, when (at least the month & what part of it if not specific date), & how she got home.” So, they are giving her LESS credence that the event occurred. No, they have not shared names or events. But makes sense to me. If it was that traumatizing she’d have more details.

             I can believe the above, because of much less (traumatizing?/eye opening) event in my life; (don’t remember exact date, but remember reason of the party, one or two Fridays it could have been, what I “didn’t” drink (probably had something spiked, in retrospect, that I am intolerant probably saved me from worse), where, why I left (got dizzy), how I got home, & what happened afterwards (sicker than I ever want to be again, for 3 days)). Still she is instant that she was in control & not drunk.

             Conclusion. Either she is flat out lying or someone implanted a false memory. Or something happened to her but she knows there is no way he would have been there & more specifics would allow him to 100% refute it.

             Compelling story & delivery. But that is all it is, a story. Period.

    2. I think the best answer to this is to treat every woman as an individual, as far as possible: If she wants to be treated as a lady, you can see it in her response as you begin to do that; same for those who don’t. And, since most women are much better than I at giving non-verbal signals, if there’s no signal at all and she reacts badly, I can shrug and leave her to her evil fantasy.

    3. Women and children FIRST.
       The next time it is really needed, the Women are going to be very pissed off.

19. Part of the reason men treated women with those courtesies was for courting purposes. A demonstration showing the woman that they had worth in their eyes; else why would we bother expending the effort to hold the door, seat them, carry them over the mud puddle (or even toss our jacket in the mud so they didn’t soil their pretty shoes); and hopefully raise our chances to be chosen by them.

20. So from the perspective of having been one, once upon a time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, here’s how you civilize teen males of the human persuasion: Convince the teen male that acting in an uncivilized fashion will cause an elder male (or in some cases an elder female, but mostly this requires a male), whose opinion the teen male values, to disapprove. This requires said elder to first earn that respect, and then communicate the rules of civilized behavior in clear, teen-comprehensible terms.

    This is the baseline counter to the opinion of same-age-females or same-age-males, as peer pressure acts as perhaps the prime motivator towards doing-something-stupid.

    This is the pattern behind the significant authority wielded by sports coaches and drill instructors, no doubt tracing back to the social structures of hominid bands.

    And it also explains why the left is so keen on shredding all these forms of authority and respect: They want the next inheritor of Stalin’s crown to take their place. The unfortunate side effect of that effort is the fall of civilization, but hey, eggs and omelets, amiright?

    1. They’ll get it right this time.

       1. Yes, THEY WILL GET IT!

          1. Just a question of order of operations

    2. By the rime you are talking about the end of civilization (and if we are discussing ‘next Stalin’, we certainly are) I think the omelet has become a full sized omel.

21. Over at Escape Artists (EscapePod, PseudoPod et. al.) they have a celebration of non men writers. But they don’t want to say non men so they say women and non binary and other identifying choices.

    This year they went with women and others, and got called out MASSIVELY by the SJW horror show.

    Their response was to apologize for harming all those not included.

    Not harming their feelings or sensibilities or identities.

    Harming them.

    This stuff makes my head hurt.

    But the word “snowflake” is harmful as well, so…

    1. As well hung for a sheep as a lamb. What reason is there not to fill a slit trench?

       (For any drive by morons who are not regulars here. I assume that regulars have worked out that internal slaughters are so costly that they should only be resorted to in extremes of necessity. The very well understood reasons why we do such things rarely, if ever, set the terms of the discussion of what alternative courses of action may be considered. We have very strong reasons to maintain clear boundaries between provable harm that is legally actionable and harm that is merely asserted. The costs of not doing so would be high. So do we consider involuntary institutionalization? Mental incompetence? Status quo, except make certain that judges weigh things a little differently from now?

       Normally I haven’t the spoons or the time to outline things in such detail, in the rare event that I am not joking or entirely serious. Excruciating detail always decreases the number of responses I see.)

       1. Foxfier’s translation of Bob:
          Hey, you know the dumb-Fs that you have yelling about slaughtering and/or maiming this that and the other group?
          Bob is our version of it, but he’s coherent, and we ARGUE AGAINST HIM.

          So go piss up a rope.

          1. And Bob is sometimes persuaded by the counter-arguments, and at times will even concede points or admit errors.

             Had an interesting discussion about an aspect of this in RL. There are elements necessary to understand the impact of this that I won’t explain here, in public. I formed my sense of American cultural identity from an idealized history developed by trying to find the truth of the false narratives in the textbooks. Yes, I have Confederate (and also Union), ancestors, but my idealized vision exclusively identifies with the Union, and I have an irreconcilable enmity with the Segregationists. I do not accept any of the post war critiques of Lincoln as being a tyrant, or Sherman of being a monster. I believe that they were purely motivated by love for their fellow humans, including the rebels, and by a simple and unambiguous understanding of the duties the Constitution demanded of them. I believe that what the Constitution demands of us is also among the demands that God expects from us. I read about Meade’s schools of foreign policy, and deliberately choosing to continue my commitment to the Jacksonian tribe forms much of my identity as an adult. I am aware that the history that my identity is based on omits many details that would be found in a more accurate collection of historical narratives. I grew up on truthful oral history, which included some of the American pacifist tendency. I rejected the latter when I rejected many aspects of socialist revisionist history. Among many other differences between the history I feel, and the history we can be pretty sure is correct.

             So I am extremely insane by the standards of mainstream American culture. Hawkish hard conservative men, for the most part, have a more nuanced view of what a man’s identity is and what an American’s identity is. I am not the mainstream of sentiment in any of the major conservative subcultures.

          2. I’m honestly not sure how much is Bob is trolling, playing the Devil’s Advocate, or actually in earnest on any given comment.

    2. Would that it were. Genuinely harmful, that is. Then we could batter these morons into silence until they learned not to argue with the adults.

    3. So, do they include the born-female writer who identifies as a man? which takes precedence here??

       1. Here’s the big version of the complaint against them.

          http://www.bogireadstheworld.com/why-women-nonbinary-is-not-a-good-idea/

          It makes my brain itch to read it and I’ve run into a lot of this stuff before due to AtH and MHN.

          The newest item for me was “ipso gender”. Included completely matter of fact and non-ironically. Had to look it up. Had to read the definition three or four time before I even had an inkling of what it was blathering about.

          I *THINK* (no guarantees) it means a person who has DECIDED, after due consideration and evaluation, that their gender (identified) does, indeed, match their physiological gender.

          I think.

          I spent WAY more time than should be spent on it.

          1. What the bleeding eff is “culturally specific genders”?

             1. I would guess it’s inspired by the she-males in…argh, Asian area, can’t remember. I want to say Thai, but I don’t know.

                There’s also some tribes where a guy can basically “live as” a woman, even being the second or third wife, and similarly women can become “warriors” where they live and act as men, that came up when they DNA tested that poor runner lady and found she’s developed as female but was genetically male, or at least had an undeveloped recessed testicle.

          2. So, in that case ipso-gendered would be a neologism equating to ‘cis-gendered’. So many terms that they’ve lost track of what’s already out there. Figures.

             Unless it’s a case of, “Look, Ma, I’ve made a new word!”

             1. I think it’s more the “african american” while “cis-(gender)” is the N word.

             2. My Duck-Duck-Go-fu says it’s in case of intersexuals who decide that the doctors got it right.

22. Yeah, damage is some of my unusual reactions to some things. That, or I’m a congenital jerk, foreordained from before the time of creation to be obnoxious.

    Hence some of my unwillingness to play around with attempts to distort law and custom out of shape to cater to other people with different damage that causes desire for comfort in different ways from what would comfort me.

    ‘Muh feelz.’

    So what. Do we make criminal justice policy solely for the comfort of people who really hate criminals? Last I checked, we don’t hang, draw, and quarter shoplifters.

23. Had similar discussion a couple of times. ‘Why do you own/carry guns? And what if the woman you’re interested in doesn’t/wont date you because of it?’

    Because my being armed states that I am willing to fight, even kill (or die) to protect you and your (our?) children. If you don’t appreciate that attitude, then whatever else your charms may be our worldviews are so far apart that there is no hope for a long-term relationship between us so have a nice day.

    1. [Imagines want-ad response in a more reasonable world] Dear Single Gunner, Hi! I’m a Single white female ISO long-term relationship. Please send picture of firearm, photo of target from last range session, and list of preferred ammo brands to… 😉

       Which actually sounds like a fun version of the Farmers-Only.Com™ ads on TV. 🙂

       1. Actually i think half the ranges i have frequented have had date nights.

          1. Let me speculate – Texas?

             1. Ok, atl at least

24. The phrase that springs to mind is “It will never get better if you pick at it.”.

    Now, that philisophy has it’s limitations. But it seems to me that what these self-nominated victims are doing is pulling the sides of the would open so it will keep oozing.

    There are times when a woulnd needs to be reopened so that pus can drain. It should be done in a healing environment, with professional help. Not on television.

25. “They’re heroic, see, because they’re victims and victims are heroic.”

    Let’s look it up:

    vic·tim (ˈviktəm)
    noun
    1. a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.

    2. a person who is tricked or duped.

    3. a living creature killed as a religious sacrifice.

    he·ro (ˈhirō)
    noun
    1. a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

    2. (NORTH AMERICAN) another term for submarine sandwich.

    I’m going out on a limb here but those two words do not seem equivalent. It seems to me that “hero” is an action noun, indicating the doing or performance of some action. “Victim” seems like a passive noun, a person who has been acted upon rather than one who has acted.

    I can understand why victims would want to seize on the identification with heroes, but that does not mean that word means what they think it means.

    1. Ah, but the Progressives are SOOOOOOO fond of redefining words for their own use. Like ‘racist’, which now means ‘not inclined to automatically group people by race, and therefore a proponent of Evil Wrongthink’.

    2. But actually doing something heroic is hard, where claiming to be a victim is easy, especially if one can claim victim status for how one says one feels.

       And by leftist definition, victims are all heroic as long as they are on the correct side of that arrow of history thingee, so bingo-bango-easy-peasy there one goes, instant heroism.

       From the couch, even.

       1. victims are all heroic, because we don’t want to think about the alternative – that some (because of how they respond) are really just losers who really need help.

    3. o.b.: Take victim definition 2 & 3 and hero definition 2 and we get a chilling look into the future of the left:

       a person who is tricked or duped…killed as a religious sacrifice…(and served as) a submarine sandwich.

       Soylent Green sandwich!

       1. beat me to it, I was going to say “turn victim (sacrifice) into hero sandwich.
          even if I was first Soylent Green gives it to you on points
          well done FlyingMike

       2. “To Serve Man”

    4. The idea of Victim = Hero comes, I think, from our association of a survivor with a hero. Because a survivor (one we used to class as a hero, anyway) had worked hard to overcome some tragedy/great difficulty (against all odds, and that sort of thing). Well, to be one of those survivors, you had to be in the position of victim, and therefore all victims that don’t fail to survive must be survivors, and therefore Heroes, right? (Yes, pretzel logic.)

       The flip side is the reduction of “hero” to “someone we admire”. It reinforces the first bit, which then makes this bit inevitable, too. (Which is how we get sports stars being called “heroes”.)

       It’s an inevitable sort of logic, when you see how language shifts as our society becomes more and more comfortable.

       1. Once I started seeing headlines about “sports heroes” I realized it had become another non-word; it used to be a word, but is now so corrupted it has no useful meaning.

          And on the flip side, “victim.” If you see a squirrel get run over by a car, you’re a “victim” and should seek grief counseling…

          “That word… I do not think it means what you think it means.”

          1. In a logical world “Victim” would be the opposite of “Victor”.

             Instead we have use “Vanquished”

       2. The idea of Victim = Hero comes, I think, from our association of a survivor with a hero.

          I had made that connection.  But to be a hero requires more than mere survival.  Now we see a celebration of victim-hood where defeat, brokenness and the inability to go forward with life is viewed as a badge of honor.  That will destroy any society that thoroughly embraces it.

          I know a coach who was chaperoning a woman’s basketball team on an away game.  They were eating at a restaurant on their way home after the game when an armed gunman came in and robbed everyone.   At the time the coach laid aside her fear and took care of the team members.  Afterwards the full force of the fear hit her.  The coach made a deliberate decision not to let the robber steal anything more than the physical items he actually had taken that night.  She was not going to stop traveling or eating at restaurants, even if it was uncomfortable.  The coach was the victim of a crime, but she choose to find the strength not let it turn her into a victim. 

    5. On the other hand, being harmed, injured, or killed is an excellent way to demonstrate that your courage is not just a sham.

       1. It may simply demonstrate that one is so fool as to bate a bull.

          1. That is not sufficient does not mean it’s not necessary. All the sham Resistance reveals its hollow core in its total lack of danger.

             1. Neither foolhardiness or sham posturing are courage.

                Courage often* involves knowingly going into a dangerous situation in spite of personal misgivings for one’s safety. Yes, in that case the personal harm taken supports the claim of courage.

                *Courage can also be demonstrated in facing a challenging situation with a grace that is above and beyond normal.

26. There’s a cultural thing going on. In a lot of places, unless you’re a particular kind of beautiful or a particular kind of competent, nobody will pay attention to you unless you’re in a particular kind of suffering. And you’re the “right” sort of victim.

    1. Sooner or later, you just want Wile E. Coyote to have a nice road-runner dinner.

27. Somewhat related is the reward system in most bureaucracies. Let’s say you judge effort and work on a 0-10 scale.You got someone who consistently performs at an 8-9 ever since starting. Got another one who performs at a 4. A year later, the 4 revs up to a 7. The other guy? Still at 8-9, consistently. Who gets the quarterly award for sailor/airman/soldier/employee of the quarter? The one who stepped up for a bit- but is still performing below the level of the consistent performer. It’s a great way to create employees and workers that don’t care. Because they learn that really good performance is never rewarded.

    1. What is needed is a quarterly vote on who in the office is most taken for granted. They are the one no one thinks to thank. No one appreciates them until they leave for a place where they will be appreciated.

       Suggestion:
       Take a blank piece of paper.
       Write 5 things you take for granted.
       Is there anyone you should thank?
       Go thank them, then.
       Suggest they get a blank piece of paper…

    2. That sounds SO much like high school. They decided to award Student of the Quarter and Year or whatever and it was *always* given to the kid they decided needed encouragement. Which meant that the model students never ever won the award. So they added a “Most Improved” but they kept doing the other in the same way anyway.

28. C4c

29. You’re not perfect. Why would anyone else be.
    Oh my, but you are assuming so very much there…….
    Because, you see, you can tell by their signalling that – while maybe not perfect – they are so very, very much better than you. On the things that matter, anyway – which you can tell (again) by their signalling.

    1. Meh. He puts up with me. The least that I can do is put up with him.

30. I know I’m broken. I just try to minimize how much my broken-ness impacts others.

31. Death and vigils. I gave up going to funerals when I was about 12. We went back to Kentucky for my uncle’s (Father’s side) funeral. Father’s family were ALL Hill Billy’s. Pikeville Kentucky He was laid out in the coffin in the living room. Flowers all around, The family all around. After three days he was taken to the cemetery and buried with grave side service. There was much morning and talking about how hard his last weeks had been.

    That affected me. There was no joy that he had been freed from his pain. No joy that he was now free and happy in Haven. All that sorrow, and everyone saying the sorrow was for HIM. No wake, no remembrance of his life, nothing about the joy he had brought to others. A major cultural clash but Dad said that is just how they did it.

    A wake and remembrance of the person and they joy the gave, YES.
    A FUNERAL, forget it.

    1. I remember that the funeral for my paternal grandfather turned into quite a jolly party, afterwards. Which was what I thought proper, anyway. Even Granny Dodo, the widow, got cheerful, although I think she had a couple of fortifying gin-an-tonics. The last two funerals we were at – for friends, not kin – also turned into rather nice potluck parties.

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